This invention relates to sights for archery bows and, more particularly, to hunting sights having adjustable crosshairs.
Sights have long been known for use with archery bows. One of the earliest sights comprised a stick or rod extending horizontally from the bow in the line of sight of the archer when the archer was in a position to shoot. The vertical height of the stick or rod was adjustable to allow for the particular range or distance to the target. The archer would draw the bowstring back and align the end of the stick with a point on the target. If the arrow missed the target the position of the stick on the bow could be adjusted until the proper position was found by trial and error.
A more sophisticated sight has been developed which replaces the stick with a threaded shaft having a ball on one end. A mounting block is attached to the bow and the threaded shaft is turned into a bore in the mounting block so that the ball end is in the line of sight of the archer. The mounting block is slidably mounted on the bow for vertical movement to provide a range adjustment in the sight. As well as moving along its flight path, an arrow tends to move transversely to its flight path, a movement known as windage. The amount of windage varies with wind conditions and also with different types of arrows. To compensate for this transverse movement and to provide a windage adjustment in the sight, the threaded shaft previously described can be turned into or out of the mounting block to move the ball end right or left.
Even with more sophisticated sight described above, the proper position of the sight on the bow is still a trial and error process. In target shooting, where the range of the target is known, it is possible to set the sight in position and leave it at that position during the entire shooting session. However, if the archer is hunting wild game, there is an added variable in that each game animal sighted will be at a varying range from the bow. There is not sufficient time while hunting to make adjustments in the sight each time a different animal comes into view.
One method of solving this problem is to provide a number of threaded shafts with ball ends vertically spaced from each other on the bow. Each of the shafts can be preset for a certain range. When the hunter sees the target animal and estimates its range, the proper pin can be used to sight the target. The disadvantage of this method is that each pin must be individually adjusted for windage. There is also no accurate sight provided for a range between two range pin balls.
Another disadvantage of the prior art sight is that the threaded shaft, once loosened for a range adjustment, is also free to move slightly in the direction of the windage adjustment, and vice versa, so that it is in practice nearly impossible to adjust range or windage separately, one from the other.
The prior art archery sights used in hunting have used a ball at the end of a shaft as the means with which the hunter draws a bead on the target. As evidenced by their widespread use in rifle sights, it would be desirable to use a crosshair as the sighting means in a bow sight.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an improved bow sight which is suitable for a hunting environment.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a bow sight which is adjustable to several ranges and which allows adjustment in either windage or range independently one from the other.
It is another object of this invention to provide a bow sight which provides a single windage adjustment for all ranges simultaneously.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a bow sight which utilizes crosshairs as the sighting element.